How to install windows with a flash drive

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This article provides the complete steps on how to install windows from a flash drive.

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Installing windows is quite easy to do by yourself without the need to visit local computer experts and the installation steps for all windows versions i.e. windows 7, windows 8, and Windows 10, and almost the same as shown in this guide.

Contents

Step 1

It is recommended that first backup all your user files on either an external storage medium like an external hard drive or online storage even though there is provision for leaving a particular drive partition unformatted during the installation. This is to ensure the safety of your data in case something

Step 2

Make sure the flash drive to be used is at least 8GB. This is because Windows is often updated and this increases its size.

Well, You won’t just copy and paste the windows files onto a flash drive. First, the flash has to be made bootable for the Windows operating system to be detected.

For detailed steps about creating a bootable flash drive. How to create a bootable USB.

Step 3

Insert the flash drive in one of the USB ports on the computer and reboot your computer. First, you have to change the order of the boot devices from the BIOS setup and you will access this by pressing ESC, F1, F8, F2 or F8 key depending on the BIOS manufacturer as you boot, a menu might appear.

Choose BIOS setup and then use the arrow keys to navigate to the BOOT tab.

Move the hard drive device to the top of the boot sequence list, expand the hard drive device to display all hard drives, and then move the USB device to the top of the list of hard drives.

Then save and exit the BIOS setup by pressing the F10 key. This will reboot the computer with saved settings.

setting up bios to install windows from a flash drive

Step 4

As the computer boots from the BIOS setup, press F9, Esc, F10 or F12 to display the boot menu and select the flash drive(listed as a USB device) however in some cases the computer will detect the device automatically and load the operating system setup.

Step 5

Be patient while the computer loads the files from the flash drive for windows installation.

loading windows files from the flash drive

Step 6

Select the preferred language and then click Next.

Choose locale to install windows from a flash drive

Step 7

Click on Install to start the windows installation process.

install windows from a flash drive

Step 8

Accept the License Terms. Read over the Microsoft Software License Terms, check I accept the license terms, and click next.

accept licence terms to install windows from a flash drive

Step 9

Select the Custom installation.

install windows from a flash drive with custom installation

Step 10

This is where you select the drive partition where you want to install the Windows operating system. Locate the partition and click on it, click on advanced options and click FORMAT, this will delete all files on that specific drive partition.

To keep your files stored on other drive partitions, don’t click on them otherwise to you can format them the same way you did with the windows installation partition. Leave the preferred partition for the windows installation selected and click next.

This will start the installation process.

choose disk partition where to install windows

Step 11

Be patient until the windows installation completes. The computer may restart several times during the installation. On each restart, remove the flash drive, if you realize that the installation process is not complete; insert the flash drive back to resume installation.

Otherwise, if you don’t remove the flash drive, the process might begin again from the first step.

installing windows

Step 12

Once the windows installation is complete, the computer will reboot into the newly installed windows operating and you will set it up with your personal settings.

Recommended: things to after installing windows.

setting up password after installing windows